Lina sat and watched Zelgadis clean the house. And clean the house. And clean the house. And -
"Don't those little midgets have anything better to do than mess this place up??" Lina yelled, causing Zelgadis to start and hit his head on the ceiling. Poor Zelgadis....
"Don't start, Lina. At least you don't have to clean this crap up!" Zelgadis gestured to the room that took the full day to clean every day. "I don't know what their deal is, but they need to learn to clean up by themselves!"
Lina snorted. "I can't believe we're doing this."
Zelgadis blinked, and held up a finger irately. "Hold on, one second there, 'We'? Ah-ah. I'm the only one doing any work here."
Lina snorted again. Zelgadis couldn't help but think if she did it too much someone might take her for a horse. "You're the one who insisted on it!" She yelled. She shouldn't get this touchy with him, but she hated this place, she didn't want to marry the prince, and she was doubly sick of having to play maidservant to those trolls while they were here. She had never seen a group of people more in the mindset of "shut up and get me a beer."
Zelgadis tossed the now filthy cleaning rag to the ground. "Well fine! I'm sorry I tried to give you a happy ending, okay? I'm sorry I'm working my ass off trying to make sure you get the guy and live happily ever after. I'm sorry I ever took this job in the first place! I'm sorry I even met you!" he yelled at her. He was just sick of this. He was sick of the dwarves, he was sick of the prejudice he got, and he was sick of her attitude.
Well, she hadn't been very mad before, but you know Lina...
"Okay fine! See if I care! I didn't want a cookie cutout prince anyway! I never wanted to be here in the first place! You know what I wanted? I wanted to become a world famous sorceress, And I wanted to beat the crap outta anyone I didn't like! I don't WANT to be some damn coddled and praised princess stuck up in some damn tower like a dove in a gilded cage!" She shrieked at him, fully enraged now. "I want to get out! I didn't want any of this anyway, you talked me into it cuz all you cared about was your damn job! You could care less what the poor princess to be thought!!!" She yelled back at him. Zelgadis backed up a step at her vehemence. "I have a life too, you know! You think I wanna be married off to the first guy with money? Maybe I did once, but my first goddamned fairy tale taught me better! Think of all the poor girls whose fairy tales actually come true! What of them? They're stuck with their perfect, cardboard husbands, good for standing up and looking pretty and not much else! Well, I for one don't WANT to live 'happily ever after'! I want to live Lina's life! Not some dumb office workers dream!"
"You think I care?" The reply was out of Zelgadis' mouth before he could stop it. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for someone like me to find ANY employment in town? Other than walking street corners, that is, and I'm NOT doing that! This is MY only ever after, too, and I want it to be something other that dying in a ditch somewhere!"
Anybody walking by would have gotten a sight. There was this redhead screaming at a small white house cat. Unless, of course, they were magically apt, in which case they would have seen a redhead screaming at a tall cat demon who kept hitting his head on the ceiling, but that doesn't [pertain to the story at all, sooo -
XELLOS!! This is my story and get away from my keyboard!
Lina opened her mouth to say something, then paused.
"What?" Zelgadis demanded, really worked up and tense.
"You look like a cat that someone tried to drown in the bathtub!!" Lina exclaimed, falling over in a hysterical giggle fit. "Ohhh, you are so put out! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
Zelgadis sat down on one of the chairs with an exasperated sigh. "Why can you not be serious for more than five minutes at a time?" He asked her tiredly. She shrugged.
"I don't like it, It's no fun."
"Whatever." He sat in the chair and sulked.
"I have an idea!!"
He groaned. "What?"
"We could fake my death!"
"What??" That's it. She's cracked. Wups, lets go clean out the belfry cuz the bats are really thick up there....
She grinned. Gets you off the hook, doesn't it? If I die, you say that the fairy tale backfired on me again. Sure, they'll be mad, but it won't last long. The girl sometimes dies in some of them, doesn't she? It'll all blow over!"
He shrugged. He didn't really care anymore. "And how, ms. Einstein, do you plan to do that?"
"I know a tree out back that grows apples."
"So?"
"Well, they're right next to a sleeping spring. I'll eat one, and I'll fall into a coma for a while. Everyone sees I'm dead, you get home free, I wake up and go my merry way! How's that sound?"
"Surprisingly good. Okay, have at it."
Okay, you guys all know the story. The dwarfs come home, they get it into their head the queen killed her, they take her in a glass coffin to the woods and leave her. Isn't that disgusting? I mean, do you want a rotting body lying in your favorite grove? I wouldn't. ugh. What's wrong with these kinky dwarves anyway? I mean, do they plan to come back periodically and -
XELLOS!! I told you a thousand times to keep away from my keyboard!!!
Anyway, Zelgadis told his boss an edited version of what happened. It had to do with the queen. You know the line of bull. They agreed it worked for a story, and he got off scott free. Zel was ecstatic.
"I'm ecstatic."
Sound a bit more ecstatic, Zel.
"I'm ecstatic."
Zel!
"I'm as freakin' ecstatic as I'm gonna get, okay?? Deal."
Okay, so Zel was semi-ecstatic.
So Zel went back every other day.. well, half day.. okay, he went to the glass coffin every freakin' hour cuz he was worried. Lina woke up eventually, and they lived happily ever after.
Okay, that's a line of bull. She woke up and they couldn't figure out how to get the damn coffin open.
Lina cussed up a storm. "How the &$@# am I supposed to *&^&$%#ing get this &(%$ing coffin? I'm gonna be stuck in here for (&$#ing EVER!!"
Zelgadis, ears reddening from the profane language, sighed. "Hold on, hold on, I'll think of something."
"I'm going to STAAAARVE!!!!"
"You're not going to starve! Shut up and lemme think."
And so, after much hmming and ahhing, he came up with the following idea:
"I have no idea."
Okay, so he was dense. Fortunately, lina had calmed down. She has all the good ideas.
"Shit. We're gonna have to do this fairy tale style, aren't we?" She grumbled. "It seems like the only way this is gonna turn out right." She sighed. "You know the script."
Zelgadis sighed. You all know the script, too. Well, he spread around the rumors of the beautiful princess asleep in the woods. He added bits and look them out, and before long she was a gorgeous babe with a hellovalot on her chest, because due to previous experience Zelgadis had notice that some princes went for that.
So there was a lot of hullabaloo and the prince got the key to the coffin from the dwarves (Who all thought he was a sick bastard) and Zel led him to the grove where Lina was lying and he unlocked it and kissed her and they fell in love and went off and got married and -
Xellos that never happened. And....
GET AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD BEFORE I NEUTER YOU!
Prince Zangulus knelt at the coffin, key in hand. "She truly is the most beautiful thing on earth," He murmured, looking at her. Zelgadis gagged nearby. Lina was covered to her neck in a white cloth, and her arms were crossed over her chest. So yeah, she seemed a heckofalot more built than she really was. Figured the prince would go for that.
Zel sighed. Lina laid still.
"Ah, I could sit and watch her beauty for ages...."
Get the hell in there, unlock the damn thing, and get me out!! Lina screamed mentally.
You know, he couldn't really look at her beauty long if she was dead. I mean, she'd start to get all smelly, and there'd be flied everywhere and ugh, it's just not worth -
XEEEELLLOOOOOOOSSSS!!!!
Libby-chan appears with a knife Bobbit style.
Xellos runs because he's not completely braindead.
Sigh.
Zangulus sighed and sat back, staring at Lina. Then at the birds. Then at the sky. Then at the sun.
This hurt his eyes, so he closed them.
Zelgadis sighed, took the key from the sleeping prince, and unlocked the coffin. Lina sat up and glared at the slumbering idiot.
Zelgadis turned to go.
"Hold on, Zel. I said I needed to get the rest of my family married off, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"So I have an idea. Come with me."
Zangulus woke up to see bright light shining down on the coffin in the darkness.
Lina and Zel peeked around the spotlight.
Zangulus got up and walked over to the coffin bathed in holy (?) light. The girl's hair had turned to a green color, but Zangulus attributed that to her being dead and all.
(Author's note: ewwww....)
Zangulus was astounded by her beauty. He knelt, unlocked the chest, and kissed her.
Zelgadis took the sleep spell off her.
Okay, do I need to tell you what happened? Anyway, Lina got another third of her curse off.
Now, the next problem; how am I going to marry off XELLOS??